Muscle Building Mistakes To Avoid

When It Comes To Building Muscle, You're Doing These Two Things Wrong

Have you ever wondered why your training partner can squat deep below parallel while you can barely reach a 90-degree angle no matter how dynamic your warm-up drills?

Or maybe your upper back rounds a bit when you do a deadlift but you feel much stronger that way. Perhaps you try to adjust your form to suit the masses and don’t feel right so you return to your way of doing things.

Don’t fret.

Just as some people are more comfortable squatting wide (generally taller guys and gals) with their toes slightly pointed to the side, others naturally feel more comfortable with their legs shoulder-width apart and toes pointed forward. Our bodies are all unique.

But knowing we’re all different, you need to find your own groove in the gym. And it’s not what you think: "Well, maybe I’m not doing enough sets, maybe I’m in the wrong rep range, maybe I need to wrap my arms to restrict blood flow and do 80 billion sets…” Does that sound like you? Stop right there. The two things you need to focus on right now are finding the right exercises for you and the perfect mechanical positioning to cater to your unique biomechanics.

Let's cover arms, chest, and back to get your upper body beastly.

Get Your Arm Training Right

Let’s say you have crappy arm genetics– you’re way over six-feet tall and your biceps peak is nowhere to be found. You wear long sleeves at the beach and fold your arms in pictures so you can perk up your arm muscles a bit (that's my secret).

You’ve just been doing the same four or five bicep exercises since you picked up your first set of dumbbells, right?

You need to start listening to your body. You know when an exercise feels right. You feel a skin-splitting pump, there’s no strain in your joints, and you get some serious DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) the next day.

So why do you follow that bodybuilding pro’s routine?

Before adding any exercise to your plan, ask yourself a few questions:

Do you feel a pump in the muscle you’re targeting?

Does it hurt so good on the stretch?

Does it “feel” better than sex, as Arnold would say?

If not, find another way.

Let’s say barbell curls only aggravate your wrists and elbow joints.

Try variation that locks your elbow in a fixed position (say, on a preacher curl bench) and use a full range of motion. Or reduce the weight and use a band to add resistance through the entire strength curve without irritating your elbows. Maybe change to an EZ bar that feels better on your wrists. Or maybe drop the exercise entirely.

Keep changing it up until you find the variation you know works best for you.

Here are some unconventional exercises that have helped my arms – and may help you get started in the right direction.

Slow, Negative Bicep Curls

Drop the weight down and focus on the eccentric (lowering) portion of the movement. Slow your tempo down (aim for a three-count on each rep) and explode on the way up. To do this even better than I did in the video, plant the inside of your palm right against the inside of the dumbbell and squeeze your pinky inwards at the top.

Single-Arm Preacher Curls (Hammer Grip)

This single-arm variation of a popular exercise locks your elbows in a fixed position and helps you attain a full range of motion. These curls are harder than they look and you should feel a great stretch in the biceps and forearms if you are doing them correctly.

Quick tip: You can make these movements even more effective by adding intensity techniques such as drop sets, cluster sets and static holds. Download this cheat sheet to learn six intensity techniques that will take your training to the next level.

It might sound a bit too "bro-science-y", but, thankfully, broscientists now have some real science to back their opinions with. Researchers Brad Schoenfeld and Bret Contreras found a direct link between establishing a strong mind-muscle connection and muscle activation. You need to train your muscles properly – not load up your joints. When performed in a controlled fashion, sets with moderate weights are tough. It’s easier to just hoist up some dumbbells with no tension or heave.

Here are a few exercises to try for growing that stubborn chest. Again, this is a highly-individualised thing, but dropping the weight and focusing on intent over ego might help you grow.

Banded Dumbbell Flies

Use a band and a different hand position to make this classic exercise harder and more effective. Wrap a resistance band behind your back, grab a pair of dumbbells and get down into a fly position. The key here is that you will hold the dumbbells in a press position while you do flies, which will increase the stretch at the bottom.

Hex Presses

These force you to truly activate your pecs throughout the movement. Too many guys use a lot of their arms and shoulders while training the chest.This exercise helps with chest isolation.

Dumbbell Presses With A Twist

Adding a twist at the end of a dumbbell press extends each rep and really forces maximum tension in your pecs during peak contraction.

Hammer Strength Presses With A Band

Double up on heavy bands while performing this move. The incline hammer strength press is a good warm-up exercise to pump blood into your chest and shoulders before getting into your heavier work of the day. Using the bands creates added tension to make a huge difference in terms of strength gains.

Bands allow for maintaining resistance throughout the entire range of motion, matching your strength curve. In other words, the bands are most resistant when you’re at your strongest (eg at the peak of a chest press, when you’re near full extension). This adds a whole other level of difficulty to the exercise without having to go too heavy and sacrificing form.

Target Your Back (Hint: Deadlifts Don’t Always Cut It)

In my early training days, despite maintaining a steady diet of deadlifts, my back lacked in size in relation to my legs and chest. I thought that if I trained my back hard and heavy with deadlifts and other compound movements, it would magically grow to be the size of Jay Cutler’s. But no matter how much weight I deadlifted, the V taper I craved didn't happen.

I realised I was beating myself up each week – with little results to show for it.

So how did I force my lat spread to get wider? I figured I needed to change my approach to back training. Hitting my back in the low rep range simply wasn’t yielding results, so I needed to think outside the box. (Note: I was focused on hypertrophy before anything. A powerlifter shouldn’t neglect accessory work, but it shouldn't form the base of his or her workouts.)

I found that if I focused on movements that allowed me to really feel the lats contract with each rep and didn’t focus so much on the weight I was using, my back responded.

Here are a few of the moves that have made all the difference for me:

Meadows Rows

You want to emphasise the stretch on the negative (eccentric) portion of the lift in a slow and controlled manner and explode upwards on the concentric part of the lift. Use smaller plates to allow for the largest range of motion possible, and work in the 8-15 rep range while pyramiding up in weight for 4-5 sets. Start with a couple of plates and keep adding weight with each set until you no longer hit your desired rep range. You can thank John Meadows for this technique.

One-Arm T-Bar Rows

Again, you want to emphasise the stretch on the negative (eccentric) portion of the lift (you’ll notice a theme here). The plates shouldn't hit the floor.

(Note: Thankfully, I didn’t stay on the Vibram fad for long: They got smelly after two workouts – to the point where I got dirty looks in the gym and had to burn them.)

Pullovers

When performed correctly, pullovers can be great for building lats. Lie on a bench with your shoulder blades firmly planted on it. Lower the weight slowly behind your head and feel the stretch at the bottom of the movement. As you bring the weights back up, make sure you are only pulling them up to a point where the bottom half of the dumbbell is parallel to the top of your head. If you feel it in your triceps, you’ve gone too far. Keep your arms straight and only use them as levers – don't extend at the elbow.

Some keyboard warriors would suggest my form is poor here, but I feel an incredible stretch in my lats. This is a back movement. As such, the haters can return to their basement and anonymously hate on someone else via YouTube comments. I’m not changing my form here.

Fixed-Position Kettlebell Rows

These eliminate body English, as long as you keep your chin planted on top of the bench. Another important cue is to not pull the kettlebell straight up. Instead, use a dragging J-shaped motion.

“What's important to remember is that the fibers of many scapular retractors (like the rhomboids) travel in more of a horizontal pattern," says strength coach Lee Boyce. "To really hit the lats, pull the dumbbell using more of a ‘drag’ pattern that starts slightly in front of the shoulder and finishes closer to the mid-torso.”

Reeves Rows

Ever heard of a Reeves deadlift? It's a great exercise that not only tests your lats and upper back, but your arm and hand strength as well.

The Reeves deadlift is not that different from a classic deadlift. However, the Reeves Row – a modified version of it – is. And it's great for keeping your lats in a stretched position throughout the duration of the set.

Load the bar with lighter plates than usual. Standing in the middle of the bar, grab the plates with the fingertips of your outstretched arms and perform a standard barbell row. Keep your elbows close to your sides and pull them back as far back as possible.

Marriage Rows

Too often, you see guys using too much weight and dry-humping the barbell with every rep while performing conventional barbell rows.

You need to check your ego at the door and use a weight you can control. Here is one exercise that puts you in a position that “forces” good form. I call it the Marriage Row because you can't cheat on it.

Set up on an incline bench (the video shows a smith machine setup, but any incline bench setup will do) and keep your torso fixed to the bench with each rep, driving up with your elbows tucked by your sides. You can substitute a pair of dumbbells or kettlebells for the barbell.

Bonus

As you become more advanced, simply performing sets in regular rep ranges – and continually trying to add weight to the bar workout after workout – won't infinitely lead to bigger and better gains.

You’ll eventually plateau (we all do), which is when outside-the-box techniques need to be employed to continue progressing. Finding the optimal exercises for you, and switching up your mechanical positioning are good tricks, but you can also try integrating intensity techniques to your workouts.

Mitch Calvert is a certified trainer and fat-loss coach. He discovered his love for fitness 14 years ago at 240 lbs – and now works specifically with men like his former self who have weight to lose and confidence to gain. He hosts Mansformation Challenges for guys looking to get over the fat-loss hump.